IN THE SWIM
Mrs. Harlan called herself a widow, and if the definition of a widow
is "a woman who has lost her husband," she held good claim to that
title. Just how this loss occurred was, however, a matter that was
shrouded in mystery. No one of her large and rather gay circle of
intimate friends either knew or greatly troubled themselves about the
matter. She had been known to speak of "Mr. Harlan" and of "my
husband," but it was quite impossible to gather from her manner
whether she mourned his loss or gloried in her freedom.
There are in New York many circles of what is politely called society,
and entrance to these circles is more or less easy of access,
depending upon just which one of these charmed rings one wishes to
enter. Mrs. Harlan's "set" was one of those to which entrance depended
solely upon possession of a decent wardrobe and the desire to have
what is rather vaguely called "a good time!" "A good time" is very
like "a good dinner," in that one's appreciation of it depends largely
upon personal taste; "what is one man's meat may be another's poison,"
and what to some is "a good time," to others would hardly be dignified
by that title.
Mrs. Harlan and her friends, however, were perfectly satisfied with
existence, and rushed from theatre to restaurant, and from road house
to friendly little games of chance in one another's apartments with an
energy that never seemed to tire.
Without this class Heaven alone knows what would become of the
theatre, the gay restaurants, the taxicab owners, and even the
automobile manufacturers. They, at least, make work for others,
however little real work they do themselves, although even among these
persons were a few men who fought hard all day for the money that kept
their endless chain of gayety running through the better part of the
night.
The man who has learned the difference between gayety and happiness
has solved one of the greatest secrets of life; such men are rare; at
least they were not numbered among Mrs. Harlan's friends.
The lady herself was a handsome woman of rather generous proportions,
her age, like her husband's exact fate, being one of the very few
subjects on which she preserved a discreet silence. She was by no
means a bad woman, according to her lights, but her lights burned dim
at times, and she had that smoldering hatred of the orthodox members
of respectability that is never absent from the heart of a clever
woman who knows that she has forever put herself beyond its pale.
Dick Fenway, very soon after his arrival in New York, became one of
the inner circle of Mrs. Harlan's intimates, both by virtue of his
natural gayety and the fact that he was what is known as a good
spender, meaning a person who, no matter how great his expenditure may
be, is never by any possible chance known to do the slightest good
with his money.
At first gossip was inclined to connect his name with that of the fair
widow, but if, for a time, there had been anything but friendship
between them, it soon burned itself out. Whatever her age, she was at
least old enough to have been his mother, and, reckless as he was, he
had far too much natural shrewdness to allow himself to become so
completely entangled that escape would be impossible.
He made no secret of the fact that he had been unhappily married; in
fact he took pains that the ladies of this particular circle should
know of it, an unhappy marriage being not only a sure passport to
their sympathy, but acting as a sort of insurance against any too
ambitious hopes that his friendly attentions might arouse.
From the day, now some months ago, when he met Lola Barnhelm, until
some time after her accident, he had dropped out of the sight of his
friends, and upon his return he offered no explanation for his
absence, other than that he had been having a stupid time and was
anxious to make up for it.
Lola had been the first well-bred girl he had ever known, and all that
was good in his nature had been stirred by the first meeting with her.
Her reproaches for his deceit about his wife had really hurt him, and
the shock he had experienced when he believed himself to have been the
cause of her death had been the one terrible experience of his shallow
life. He had been taken to the police station, and while waiting for
his lawyer to arrange for his release on bail had been informed that
the girl was not seriously hurt and that there was no charge against
him.
His relief from his feeling of horror and remorse was naturally great,
but he made up his mind that it was quite hopeless to expect Lola's
forgiveness, and when he met her one day on Broadway, shortly after
her recovery, he was about to pass her without any other greeting than
a bow, when to his great surprise she stopped him and, without any
reference either to the accident or to his deceit about his marriage,
chatted with him so gayly and so pleasantly that he took heart and
invited her to drop into a restaurant with him for a cup of tea.
From her manner, as she entered the great room filled with laughing,
chattering, well-dressed men and women, he could hardly be blamed for
not knowing that this was the first time in all her life that she had
ever been in such a place.
Neither her father nor John Dorris were rich men; they knew nothing of
the life that is reflected in such place; to John a few visits with
her, to the theatre, long walks in the Park, or quiet evenings in the
apartment won the natural development of their intimacy, and Dr.
Barnhelm knew as little as he cared, which was not at all, about the
sham glitter and forced gayety of the great eating places that have
done so much to destroy the home life of the average New Yorker.
In these surroundings, in an atmosphere of false luxury, of noise,
heat, and confusion, against a background of painted women and flushed
and loud-voiced men, the real reverence he had always had for her
began rapidly to disappear, and he found himself looking upon her
simply as a charming and beautiful young girl, who, as a matter of
course, was to be pursued as diligently and as relentlessly as
circumstances would allow. After all, the respect the world has for us
is usually the measure of our own respect for ourselves, and as Lola
made no effort to rebuke his rather daring advances, they naturally
increased in freedom until in all the great room there was no gayer
table than theirs.
Many heads were turned toward them, many questions were asked about
who this new beauty could be. Fenway seemed to be known to almost
everyone, and several times men came up to the table and spoke to him,
but if they had hoped to be introduced to his companion they were
disappointed, and they went away muttering angrily.
Lola would drink nothing but tea; in fact she needed nothing stronger;
the intoxication of the scenes is as complete sometimes as the
intoxication of strong drink, and to this girl, seeing for the first
time a glimpse of the thing that to her seemed life, came the birth of
a desire that never again left her, the desire to know everything, to
experience everything, to live as those persons about her seemed to be
living, without thought of anything but the pleasure of the moment,
and had she known the price that all who live that life must surely
pay, she would still have gone on.
This was the first of several meetings, sometimes alone, sometimes in
the company of Mrs. Harlan, to whom he later introduced her. She had
frankly told him that first day that her father would never consent to
allow him to come to their home, and he had been well content to meet
her in places where less restraint was necessary.
To his great surprise, however, he found Lola much better able to
protect herself than he had expected. She was what Mrs. Harlan
described, after the first time she met her, as "a mighty smooth
proposition," and although he knew himself by this time to be madly in
love with her, he could not flatter himself with the hope that she was
in the very least inclined to allow him to make a fool of her. Mrs.
Harlan in fact did not hesitate to inform him that he was the one who
was playing the fool. She rather coarsely described the affair as "a
ten to one shot against him."
"Why don't you hurry up that divorce and marry the girl?" she demanded
of him on the afternoon on which Lola had made the appointment to meet
him. "You are crazy about her, and it's the only way she'll ever
listen to you. If you don't look out she'll marry that young bank
clerk and leave you flat."
"I doubt it," replied Dick, sulkily. "John Dorris is one of those nice
boys, like you read about, and the way Lola is coming on lately he
wouldn't have speed enough to keep up with her. She may marry him, I
don't say she won't, but if she does God help him."
"That's all right, too," replied his friend, "but she's too smart to
make a fool of herself over a married man like you. She'll let you run
her around in your car and buy her a few nice little presents, but
just as you think she's going to fall into your arms, she's going to
step back and give you the laugh. I may be a fool, but that's the way
it looks to me."
It was about the way it looked to him also, but he did not think it
necessary to inform her of the fact, so to change the subject, and to
kill time until the three o'clock appointment, he proposed lunching at
Rector's, and she agreeing, they drove there in his car, and he,
contrary to his usual custom, drank far more than was good for him.
Lola herself found time hanging heavily on her hands, and wandered
aimlessly about the apartment waiting for her father and Dr. Crossett
to return. Maria came to her at last, holding in her hand several
letters, all but one of which she placed upon the table.
"Is that one for father?" said Lola, seeing her about to leave the
room with one letter in her hand.
"No, Miss. It's for me." She hesitated for a moment, then went on
shyly. "It's from Mr. Barnes!"
"Oh," remarked Lola curiously, "I thought he had stopped writing to
you."
"No, Miss."
"Can you read them yourself now?"
"I try to," replied Maria; "I manage to spell 'em out somehow."
"Why don't you ask me to read them for you?"
Maria did not reply for a moment, and turned once, as if to leave the
room, but at last she seemed to make up her mind, and crossing to the
couch on which Lola had languidly thrown herself, she said quietly, "I
couldn't ask you while you were sick, and once, after we moved over
here, I--I did, and you said you didn't want to be bothered. After
that, some way I--I couldn't seem to bring myself to ask again. You
see, I'm growing awful fond of Mr. Barnes, and--and I guess I'm sort
of sensitive about him."
The poor girl said nothing of the hours she had studied, hopelessly
confused, to spell out the crude little letters from the lover who
meant so much to her, nor of the real delicacy that prevented her from
asking anyone but the mistress she loved so deeply to read what he had
written. To her Lola could do no wrong, and no man could hold any
place in her heart that she would for a moment try to conceal from
this girl who had brought the first glimpse of sunshine into her life.
"Give me your letter," said Lola indolently. "I can't remember being
cross about it. Really I don't mind at all. I am rather interested."
She took the letter that Maria eagerly passed to her, and opening it
read slowly, for Mr. Barnes was a better sailor than scholar.
"'August 18. Newport, R. I. Respected friend----'" She looked up,
laughing. "I see that he is still properly respectful."
"Yes, Miss," replied Maria, simply. "He loves me!"
Lola looked at her for a moment, then smiled rather bitterly, and
continued:
"'I take my pen in hand to let you know that I got a bad fall in the
gun turret and broke my left leg----'"
Maria's little cry of fear and sorrow was drowned in Lola's joyous,
hearty laughter. Maria looked at her, anger and reproach struggling
with her love and respect, and Lola seeing her face, smothered her
mirth.
"Really I am sorry," and she started to continue, "'broke my left leg,
and I haven't been able to write with it before.' That's what I was
laughing at, Maria; it does sound funny, doesn't it?"
"Give me that letter." For the first time in her life Maria spoke to
her rudely, no longer the servant, but the offended woman. "Give it to
me."
"Really, I beg your pardon, Maria, but it is too absurd. Wait! I will
read you the rest of it."
Maria stepped forward and took the letter out of her hand.
"If you please, Miss," she said quietly, "I would rather spell it out
myself. You see he didn't write that thinking that anybody was going
to laugh at it. He wrote it for an ignorant girl that loves him. I
can't read good, but I can understand, and I guess that's all he
wants."